The Israeli army said its soldiers fired on the walled UN
compound inside the refugee camp killing British senior
manager Ian Hook, because Palestinian gunmen were shooting at
them from inside and Hook's cellphone appeared to them to be
a grenade. The United Nations vigorously denied that
Palestinian gunmen shot from their building.
Nonetheless, the gate to the UN girls' school in the Jenin
refugee camp is plastered with posters hailing suicide
bombers. The UN compound down the street has graffiti on its
outer wall signed by the militant group Hamas warning that
"When they kill a martyr, we will kill 100 Jews."
The UN agency helping Palestinian refugees has provided
education and health care to Palestinians for over 50 years
since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Paul McCann, a UN spokesman, said the compound is sealed by
an 2.5-meter-tall (8-foot) cement block wall topped with
another 2 meters (6 feet) of fencing, and closed to anyone
without UN permission.
"No, no, no, it was impossible for any Palestinian gunman to
get in there," said Tawfiq Mohammad Farhad, 75, whose three-
story home is directly across the street from the UN
compound. However he says Israeli soldiers used his home to
fire onto the UN compound and street as they hunted for a
wanted militant.
Israeli officials say Friday's firefight was another instance
in which Palestinian militants had used UNRWA, the UN Relief
and Works Agency, as a cover to attack Israelis. The refugee
camps themselves, such as the one in Jenin, are run by UNRWA
and they are centers of terrorist activity.
Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, said he does not accuse UNRWA of direct collaboration
with Palestinian militants, but said UNRWA could do more to
"raise its voice" to oppose armed groups from operating in
the camps.
"What you find today in Jenin is a litany of the history of
the use, misuse and abuse of camps by armed groups," he said.
Israel has called Jenin the hotbed of Palestinian militant
activity.
UNRWA was created in 1949 to provide relief until a political
settlement was found. Since none has yet been reached, the
agency today offers education, health care and other services
to 3.9 million Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Judea,
Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
In the territories alone, UNRWA operates about 260 schools
and about 50 primary health care facilities, serving more
than 1.5 million registered refugees and employing about
10,000 Palestinians.
UNRWA says it is not its mandate to go after militants,
saying security in refugee camps has always been the
responsibility of either Israel or the Palestinian
Authority.
"The camps are not UNRWA camps ... it's not like we
administer the camps," McCann said. "We have a humanitarian
responsibility for people who live in the camps."
Similarly, the teachers, doctors and nurses who work for
UNRWA can't be expected to act as informants - they are
Palestinians, just like their neighbors, and that's not their
job, he said.
Jewish groups and American legislators earlier launched a
campaign to reform UNRWA and change its mandate, claiming
that its schools tolerated a climate of terrorism that no UN
agency would allow.
"UNRWA has been transformed into a shield for terrorism,"
said Avi Beker, secretary general of the World Jewish
Congress. "UNRWA has been used, but at the same time, under
the watchful eyes of UNRWA officials, these things are
happening."
U.S. Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia said earlier this
year that if terrorism was thriving under UNRWA's eye, the
United States should withhold funding - which amounts to
about one-third of the agency's annual budget of about US$310
million.
